The absolute absurdity of God

[SteveII]

You are welcome to interact with my syllogism I wrote above (which I think addresses your point). 

Deductive Argument:

1. The cause is past-eternal
2. The effect (the universe) is not past-eternal 
3. The cause exists prior to the effect (from 1-2)
4. If a cause is sufficient to produce its effect then if the cause is there, so is the effect.
5. The cause-->effect was not deterministic (from 3-4)
6. A mind with intention (libertarian free will) is the only completely non-deterministic cause
7. Therefore the cause is a mind with intention (personal).

1. There doesn't seem to be much need for it to be past-eternal, but if it is, there is the obvious problem with past-infinites that many take it as a brute fact that if anything is past eternal it is impossible to ever get to the present. I have a counter-intuition that there has to a present at some point, and now is as good a time as any; but that is also a premise I can't support any further. In any case, 1. could be a 'causeless cause' without being past eternal (or personal).

Yes, there is very much a need. If it was not past eternal it would need an explanation for its existence. The whole point to the argument is to get back to a necessarily-existing first cause and break an infinite regress.

2. The current cosmos is not past-eternal, but to the best of our knowledge it is a transformation of a previous state and what came before that is a mystery. If 1. can be past-eternal, so can the universe, in the broad sense of something having always existed in some form. It may have existed statically forever until something changed (causeless cause), have undergone many transformations, etc. The alternative to something existing is 'philosophical nothingness' which strikes me as an incoherent concept.

No, not "to the best of our knowledge it is a transformation of a previous state...". We have no knowledge of any kinds. It is metaphysical musings at best. The universe cannot be past eternal because material things can't be. See the other post on the impossibility of a past series of events. Something purely material cannot "have existed statically forever until something changed"--see premise (4). Nothing in the argument proposes there was 'nothing' at one point. 

3. Within the universe, that's how it works. But it is a fallacy of composition to assume that the way things work within the universe is the way things worked prior to the universe. Just because a wall is made of indestructible bricks doesn't mean the wall is indestructible. Cause proceed effect within the universe, but even then there seem to be exceptions on the quantum level, where events can occur without a proceeding cause, according to quantum mechanics. And the state of the universe prior to the initial expansion was small enough for quantum affects to apply, according to the available evidence and (I'm told) the math.

Since this is a sub-argument that Jorm inquired about to get to a "personal" cause, I focused on the logic specifically to that point--and not feeling the need to include the whole argument up to that point. The larger argument specifically avoids arguing by composition. "An explanation" is rooted in the metaphysical principle that things don't just pop into existence: a PSR. 

i. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
ii. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
iii. The universe exists.
iv. Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence (from 1, 3).
v. Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God (from 2, 4).

4. I see no problem with this one.
5. 1-3 were a mess in my opinion, so I can't agree that this has been proven.
6. This is an additional premise/unsupported assertion.
7. You might as well have dumped 1-5 and started with 6 and you'd have just as good a case.

Seems like my effort survived all your criticism.

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Sounds fishy that a mathematical model can affect anything in the real world. Links?

Didn't I already show you this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation

What? Quantum mechanics describes quantum events of real quantum particles in the four actual dimensions of the universe. Spacetime is a mathematical model of how the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time might work together. The mathematical model of spacetime is the very definition of an abstract object. Abstract objects are causally effete.  Therefore spacetime does not cause or affect anything.

[The Grand Nudger]

The whole point to the argument is to get back to a necessarily-existing first cause and break an infinite regress.

An utterly damning statement.  The point of the argument is not to present any reasonable explanation, but to avoid an uncomfortable artifact while asserting ones religious beliefs.

[robvalue]

Reality doesn't have to conform to what we think is logical.

An easier thing to imagine is an infinite regress in a time loop. It just goes round and round, or back and back. Somehow, we eventually end up in exactly the same state that existed before the Big Bang.

Am I saying this is true? No. But I'm saying you can't discount it.

[pocaracas]

Didn't I already show you this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation

What? Quantum mechanics describes quantum events of real quantum particles in the four actual dimensions of the universe. Spacetime is a mathematical model of how the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time might work together. The mathematical model of spacetime is the very definition of an abstract object. Abstract objects are causally effete.  Therefore spacetime does not cause or affect anything.

Ok, so explain to the rest of the class how a quantum field in vacuum requires any particle.
Last time I checked, vacuum is described as the absence of particles.

[Angrboda]

The Buddhist canons contain arguments based on the phenomenology of human experience relating to the essential nature of that reality.  This is a fundamental claim of Buddhism and if you are not familiar with it and basing your rejection on sound counter-argument, instead of what appears to be the case, that you are rejecting Buddhism based on a superficial and shallow understanding of it, then your complaint about people not conducting a thorough examination of the case of Christianity is nothing but rank hypocrisy, and your supposed conclusions about the comparative strengths of the evidence for both which you gave in another thread are nothing more than special pleading based upon an ignorant and dishonest misrepresentation of the fairness and diligence which you have failed to apply to the case for other religions.  I don't fault you for being ignorant of Buddhism.  But I do fault you for your hypocrisy and the essential sophistry of attempting to compare a nuanced view of Christianity and an ignorant and clumsy view of other religions, and pretending that you've made a fair comparison.  The fact that you are not even aware of what the evidence for Buddhism would consist of, speaks volumes about the competence with which you've conducted your investigation and subsequent dismissal.

Responding one subject at a time.
The "hypocrisy" charge requires a parallel. I don't 'reject' Buddhism because of its beliefs per se. I reject it because according to my understanding of it, it does not satisfactorily  answer fundamental question about the important worldview questions like origins, the nature of reality, does it reflect our basic understanding of personhood and how we intuitively think about ourselves? I would say that hurdles like that act as a filter to move on to find out about other worldviews without having to know core details. 
People don't reject Christianity because it does not answer basic worldview questions--it does--more completely than any other religion. They say they reject it specifically because of lack of evidence. That is a positive claim that then can be examined--and in almost all cases, proven that they cannot even articulate the evidence let alone support that it is insufficient.

There are multiple points in which your response is unclear, so rather than preface everything I say with an "if you mean this" I'm just going to make my best guess and you can correct me later if necessary.  My first impression of your response is that you are comparing the surface conclusions of Buddhism with those that you already believe and when Buddhism comes up short in that department, declaring it unsatisfactory.  My reasons for this conclusion are as follows.  First of all, it's unclear what you mean when you say that Buddhism doesn't satisfactorily answer certain questions.  If you simply mean that you don't find it subjectively satisfying, then that is not really relevant.  Also, if you simply find the conclusions on their own unsatisfactory, that too is insufficient, as the question is really not does Buddhism's conclusions measure up to some standard you currently hold, but rather whether it is rationally satisfying or not, and that requires a comparison of the relevant arguments for those conclusions to determine whether they are rationally satisfactory or not.  You seem to imply that you have not done so when you argue that you need not examine the core details of Buddhism in order to come to a conclusion.  You obviously consider the fact that an atheist might find this or that belief or doctrine of Christianity to be unsatisfying in the absence of an understanding of the core details which justify that belief or doctrine to be an inadequate and improper dismissal.  Yet, unless I am misreading you here, you don't apply the same standard to your own dismissal of Buddhism.  Thus the charge of hypocrisy.  (I'll give you an opportunity to demonstrate that you have a good grasp of the core arguments for Buddhism later.) 

But let's move to the specific examples you give to see if they further inform the question or not.  I must first say that the list you give here is remarkably different from that you gave in a previous thread which seemed to focus on epistemological concerns.  It gives the distinct impression that you are moving the goal posts around to suit the occasion.  First, a general comment about "worldview" questions.  Worldviews tend to be based on prior beliefs, first and foremost, but more importantly, the question of whether a given worldview is satisfactory in the sense of being consistent and coherent really tells us little about whether that worldview is true or not.  Little Rik believes in a Hindu worldview in which reality is merely the mental projection of God.  Given his inventiveness, he can provide you with an answer that is consistent with that worldview for practically any question you might ask.  That he can do this is not a rationally compelling reason for believing that his worldview is true.  But let's examine the specific examples you've provided.  Your first criteria is whether the Buddhist worldview is more rationally compelling in the area of beginnings.  It's unclear whether you mean the beginnings of the universe, or the births of Christ and Buddha here, but neither option seems to hold up.  First, neither is core to Buddhism, so evaluating Buddhism on such criteria is akin to evaluating the beliefs of a Christian denomination on some ancillary doctrine of no great import.  The criteria need to be relevant to Buddhism, and this does not appear to be the case here.  Second, since Christianity basically asserts that a god just happens to exist for no verifiable reason, and the Buddhists, when they do speculate on such things, tend to give equally unjustified solutions, I don't see how one is more satisfactory than the other.  If you're comparing the immaculate conception and the virgin birth to the various miracle stories surrounding the birth of Buddha and claiming those more rational, then I don't find your conclusion well supported.

The next criteria you offer is the nature of reality.  Since this is intricately tied to the Buddhist arguments regarding the nature of reality, again, we don't get very far without investigating those core arguments.  But I have to ask you whose understanding of the nature of reality you're using as a standard here.  Science has an understanding of the nature of reality.  And Little Rik has an understanding of reality.  And you as a Christian have an understanding of the nature of reality.  To my view, once you drill down into any of these worldviews, you reach questions about the fundamental nature of reality which are empirically indistinguishable from one another, so I'm left wondering what your rational justification for preferring one to the other is.  As an example, Little Rik is fond of remarking that, according to science, everything is vibration.  My response was to point out that there are three indistinguishable theories about that.  His view that these vibrations are alive, and that's what's causing them to vibrate.  A Christian view that God himself maintains order in the universe by sustaining the laws of nature and causing these vibrations to vibrate as they do.  And the view of science that these vibrations are either a brute fact, or are simply unexplained as of yet.  Since all three views are essentially indistinguishable from the point of view of observation, there is no obvious rational reason for preferring one to the other.  Ultimately, what you mean by "the nature of reality" is incredibly vague, and there doesn't appear to be any definite "the nature of reality" so I must ask what you are referring to here, and why you find the Buddhist arguments concerning it unsatisfactory.

Your next criteria seems to confirm what I suspected, when you ask if the Buddhist worldview agrees with "our basic understanding of personhood and how we intuitively think about ourselves."  The first question is just who is the "we" in that first clause.  If you ask a Buddhist if Buddhism agrees with his understanding of personhood, he's going to say yes.  So what basic understanding of personhood are you comparing things to here?  Science?  Science doesn't really have a basic understanding of personhood here.  If you're comparing it to the basic understanding of a Westerner who has been inculcated with a view consistent with Christian assumptions, then your comparison is inappropriate.  And again, it's not a question of whether or not the surface conclusions about personhood agree with this or that other conclusion, but rather whether the arguments for that view of personhood are as compelling as those which underlie a Western or Christian view of personhood.  Many eliminative materialists will argue that our views on personhood constitute nothing more than a folk theory of our persons, and as such don't necessarily have a foundation in reason.  So what understanding of personhood are you claiming is more rationally compelling here.  As to the second clause, whether something fits our intuitions or not is not a rational criteria.  If you instead mean that it agrees with our direct comprehension of our experience or not, that's something else.  Since the Buddhist arguments are based upon that direct apprehension of our inner world, one can't dismiss Buddhism without grappling with those arguments.  If you mean intuitive insight in the sense I think you do, it's simply uninformative.  The fruits of intuition are neither transparent, available to inspection as to their source and cause, nor are they known to be reliable.   And it's known that intuitions are subject to prior conditioning. There was an experiment in which scientists aimed to determine the intuitive understanding of motion that people had. What they found was that many held an incorrect Aristotlean understanding of motion rather than the more accurate Newtonian. So the beliefs and theories that you've been exposed to condition your intuition, and so any appeal to intuition is again just using your previously held beliefs as the standard as to what is reasonable. So whether they fit your intuitions about this or that is really an irrelevant criteria.  Again, if you ask a Buddhist if they fit their intuitions, they'll say yes.  So, if my understanding of your criteria thus far is reasonable, you seem to be confirming the hypocrisy charge rather than rebutting it.

Unless I've erred greatly in understanding what you've said, there are three problems here.  First, you've moved away from a more properly epistemological concern for the truth of a religion to one based upon whether it's worldview is in some undefined sense satisfying.  Second, whether you find the worldview satisfying seems to be largely predicated upon whether it comfortably conforms to your specific prior held beliefs or not.  Third, you seem to be arguing that one can compare the rationality of this or that belief or worldview component independent of the underlying arguments for them, and the rationality of those (the "core" details).  That doesn't appear to hold true, and furthermore, you seemed originally to be faulting atheists for making a similarly uninformed inspection of Christianity.  If there's any truth to the latter, then you most definitely are being hypocritical.  But since you don't outright acknowledge that you are in fact uninformed with respect to the core details of Buddhism, I'll leave you to answer that question explicitly.

So, what is your understanding of the Buddhist arguments for Anatta, Sunyaata, Nagarjuna's two truths doctrine, and dependent origination, and why don't you find those arguments compelling?

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@Steve:

Having just typed up a lengthy reply, addressing some of your latest arguments will have to wait. Instead, I'm going to cut to the chase with a counter-argument.

If one considers the conception of creation you are proposing here, there are two separate states. A state in which God exists timelessly, and one in which he decides to create the universe and does so. There is an obvious problem here. In order for the state in which God alone exists to become a state in which God and creation occur, change must take place. The first state is different from the latter state, so something has changed between the two (See Craig's discussion of extrinsic relationships at Craig, 2002). Where there is change, there is time, by definition. So if God really did exist in a timeless state without the creation existing, then he could not have created the universe. That he did create the universe indicates that the "prior" time when the universe was not undergoing creation was also a part of time. And this works inductively if you propose a prior state to that in which he was also timeless. So in order for God to be a necessary being, either his creation of the universe must be simultaneous with his existing, or he must have existed in a temporally eternal existence prior to creation. (I'm following on William Lane Craig's analysis of God being timeless prior to creation, and temporal alongside creation. See Craig, 2002.) Since an infinite existence prior to creation is ruled out by your arguments against traversing an actual infinity, the only possibility is that God and creation are simultaneous and concurrent. Unfortunately this poses two problems. First, if that is the case and the universe is only 15 billion years old, then God too is only 15 billion years old, and he is contingent rather than necessary. Second, the cause no longer precedes the effect, making it a metaphysical impossibility.

Now that is the case given the typical assumptions underlying the cosmological argument, and likewise for other first cause arguments. There is a way out, however, and that is to conceive of time as being unbounded in the past, as is the case in the Hawking-Hartle no boundary proposal and similar boundaryless models. Unfortunately, this isn't helpful as such models undermine the basic logic of such cosmological arguments and are thus equally fatal to the conclusion of a first cause, whether of God or some unspecified first cause.

Either road you travel down ends in failure of the first cause arguments to establish the existence of God (even setting aside the requirement of libertarian free will, which you have not thus far addressed).

I'll pick apart your deductive syllogism at another time.

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For no other reason than that it just occurred to me, I have to ask the following question in relation to your thoughts about Buddhism. The Christian doctrine of the trinity is typically justified by an appeal to special revelation; it can be justified with recourse to the bible. It has some limited defense as to its logic and reasoning, but is generally regarded as simply a mystery. That if you think you understand the trinity, then you manifestly don't understand the trinity. Prima facie, it appears as just an illogical and arbitrary assertion. What Buddhist doctrine do you find as ludicrous as the Christian doctrine of the trinity, and why?

(I'll likely have a similar question about your pseudo-Appollinarian Christology, but one thing at a time, I suppose.)

[SteveII]

What? Quantum mechanics describes quantum events of real quantum particles in the four actual dimensions of the universe. Spacetime is a mathematical model of how the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time might work together. The mathematical model of spacetime is the very definition of an abstract object. Abstract objects are causally effete.  Therefore spacetime does not cause or affect anything.

Ok, so explain to the rest of the class how a quantum field in vacuum requires any particle.
Last time I checked, vacuum is described as the absence of particles.

I really, really don't understand this rabbit trail we are going on and how it relates to any part of any argument, but...

According to present-day understanding of what is called the vacuum state or the quantum vacuum, it is "by no means a simple empty space".[1][2] According to quantum mechanics, the vacuum state is not truly empty but instead contains fleeting electromagnetic waves and particles that pop into and out of existence.[3][4][5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_state

[pocaracas]

Ok, so explain to the rest of the class how a quantum field in vacuum requires any particle.
Last time I checked, vacuum is described as the absence of particles.

I really, really don't understand this rabbit trail we are going on and how it relates to any part of any argument, but...

According to present-day understanding of what is called the vacuum state or the quantum vacuum, it is "by no means a simple empty space".[1][2] According to quantum mechanics, the vacuum state is not truly empty but instead contains fleeting electromagnetic waves and particles that pop into and out of existence.[3][4][5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_state

So an infinite spacetime, in this vacuum state is always in a constant production of particles and fields. What's keeping this mechanism from popping a Universe?
No matter how unlikely it actually is, in an infinity of spacetime, it must surely happen... perhaps even an infinity of Universes are bound to happen. Surely, not all at the same point of spacetime.

It relates to your argument(s), because it totally removes any agency from the cause of the Universe. It's just random.
Like your first cause, god, needs to be a brute fact to you... I keep things simple and think it's more reasonable to consider spacetime as the brute fact.
Spacetime has the added benefit of having actually been verified to produce these particles... which should be a very good hint.

[Mister Agenda]

There are countable infinities... that alone destroys your point 2.

Not with real objects (1). Premise 2 still intact.

It's questionable whether past events are real objects...they did exist but they don't exist now.

[Silver]

The absurdity of god equals the absurdity of those who support his existence.

[Mister Agenda]

And yet, evidence suggests that spacetime can generate concrete objects...
How do you wrap your head around this fact?

Sounds fishy that a mathematical model can affect anything in the real world. Links?

The mathematical model of spacetime models, um, spacetime, which is really real. Currently really real. Unlike the past, which is in the past, which is not a real place in the same sense that Albuquerque is a real place (for now).

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1. There doesn't seem to be much need for it to be past-eternal, but if it is, there is the obvious problem with past-infinites that many take it as a brute fact that if anything is past eternal it is impossible to ever get to the present. I have a counter-intuition that there has to a present at some point, and now is as good a time as any; but that is also a premise I can't support any further. In any case, 1. could be a 'causeless cause' without being past eternal (or personal).

Yes, there is very much a need. If it was not past eternal it would need an explanation for its existence. The whole point to the argument is to get back to a necessarily-existing first cause and break an infinite regress.

2. The current cosmos is not past-eternal, but to the best of our knowledge it is a transformation of a previous state and what came before that is a mystery. If 1. can be past-eternal, so can the universe, in the broad sense of something having always existed in some form. It may have existed statically forever until something changed (causeless cause), have undergone many transformations, etc. The alternative to something existing is 'philosophical nothingness' which strikes me as an incoherent concept.

No, not "to the best of our knowledge it is a transformation of a previous state...". We have no knowledge of any kinds. It is metaphysical musings at best. The universe cannot be past eternal because material things can't be. See the other post on the impossibility of a past series of events. Something purely material cannot "have existed statically forever until something changed"--see premise (4). Nothing in the argument proposes there was 'nothing' at one point. 

3. Within the universe, that's how it works. But it is a fallacy of composition to assume that the way things work within the universe is the way things worked prior to the universe. Just because a wall is made of indestructible bricks doesn't mean the wall is indestructible. Cause proceed effect within the universe, but even then there seem to be exceptions on the quantum level, where events can occur without a proceeding cause, according to quantum mechanics. And the state of the universe prior to the initial expansion was small enough for quantum affects to apply, according to the available evidence and (I'm told) the math.

Since this is a sub-argument that Jorm inquired about to get to a "personal" cause, I focused on the logic specifically to that point--and not feeling the need to include the whole argument up to that point. The larger argument specifically avoids arguing by composition. "An explanation" is rooted in the metaphysical principle that things don't just pop into existence: a PSR. 

i. Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.
ii. If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.
iii. The universe exists.
iv. Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence (from 1, 3).
v. Therefore, the explanation of the universe’s existence is God (from 2, 4).

4. I see no problem with this one.
5. 1-3 were a mess in my opinion, so I can't agree that this has been proven.
6. This is an additional premise/unsupported assertion.
7. You might as well have dumped 1-5 and started with 6 and you'd have just as good a case.

Seems like my effort survived all your criticism.

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Didn't I already show you this?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_fluctuation

What? Quantum mechanics describes quantum events of real quantum particles in the four actual dimensions of the universe. Spacetime is a mathematical model of how the three dimensions of space and the one dimension of time might work together. The mathematical model of spacetime is the very definition of an abstract object. Abstract objects are causally effete.  Therefore spacetime does not cause or affect anything.

1. In other words, YOU need it for YOUR argument to work.
2. Up to the point where our knowledge ends, only transformations are observed. Inserting something different than transformations beyond that point is unjustified. You don't get to posit a whole new thing because of our ignorance. The most you can posit is that the series of transformations might not hold. And I'd be interested in your proof that material things can't be past eternal. We've never observed a material thing (energy or matter) ceasing to exist above the quantum level. In fact we only observe matter and energy transforming, never ceasing to exist. On what basis can you conclude that they can't be eternal? And how can you eliminate the possibility of a 'causeless cause' when such events seem to be common at the quantum level? I know it's inconvenient for your premise, but it's what the available evidence points to.
3. The 'metaphysical principle' that things don't just 'pop into existence' was a reasonable inference before we began to understand quantum mechanics and became capable of devising instrumentation that can observe events on a subatomic scale. To infer that 'everything has a cause' and to maintain that despite new observations that indicate otherwise is a form of foolishness. That it's conceivable that someday quantum events may be discovered to not actually be stochastic in nature is not a justification to cling to a principle that denies evidence.

I'm sure that it seems to YOU that your effort survived my criticism.